


Tangled Up In You

by horselizard



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Bondage, Dom!Lister, Dom/sub, Episode Related, Genital Torture, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Painplay, Porn With Plot, Predicament Bondage, Season/Series 10, mlm author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 05:57:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1458460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horselizard/pseuds/horselizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Missing scenes" from Entangled. Started as a one-scene ficlet... ended up rather bigger.</p><p>Lister and Rimmer's relationship arrangement is complicated, and they don't always manage to do right by each other. But somehow, one way or another, they muddle through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tangled Up In You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Janamelie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janamelie/gifts).



> Written for the Starbuggers Red Dwarf Kink Meme. Original prompt: "A loose rewrite of the ep 'Entangled' where Lister and Rimmer are in a consensual (but secret) D/s relationship, hence Lister thinking of Rimmer as his to bet. Rimmer flirts with Irene not only because he likes her, but because he knows it will lead to mutually pleasurable 'punishment' from Lister later."
> 
> This owes a fairly transparent debt to various bits of meta that have recently come up on Tumblr, so I tip my hat to those that understand Lister better than I. I hope I've done him (and them) justice. Concrit is welcome.
> 
> Disclaimer: I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to D/s in practice. For God's sake, don't try this at home. Especially if you're not an undamageable hard-light hologram. Or at the very least, make sure you know how to use the safe-word which Rimmer and Lister definitely have but is never mentioned at any point during the fic.

The evening was, Lister had to admit, really not going to plan.

It couldn't have been the hooch. He could hold his drink better than anyone he knew. Sure, technically these days he only knew three people, and only one of them had a fully organic nervous system, but... he was a damn good poker player, smeg it all. Especially when he was nicely drunk.

“One more round,” he slurred insistently, gesturing at the cards to try and make himself understood. It was the cards, it had to be. Law of averages, he was bound to get a good hand this time. He could get himself out of this, no problem.

The BEGGs guffawed, and Lister scowled. They'd be laughing on the other side of their faces soon enough. Assuming they were laughing on the usual side at the moment. It was hard to tell.

Their ringleader picked up the keys to Starbug, and dangled them tauntingly between their fingers. “What you bet?” they growled, with a grin.

Ah, right.

Lister looked around uncertainly, and patted his pockets a bit. Unhelpfully, the BEGGs sniggered. Then one of them said, “Or _who_ you bet?”

“What?” Lister exclaimed, thrown. OK, it was true he was struggling a bit for stakeable material possessions, but surely, they couldn't be serious! You couldn't bet a person!

“You got pet?” the ringleader suggested.

 _I've still got a cat. OK, it's not Frankenstein, but it's still a cat._ He couldn't believe he'd ever, for one moment, thought of Cat as his pet. The guy was practically more human than him. And besides, even Frankenstein hadn't just been a possession that he would trade at will. She was his responsibility, his to care for! A cat is for life, not just for poker chips...

“No!” he replied indignantly.

“You got droid?” another grinned.

This time, Lister almost leapt out of his seat in righteous anger. No smegging _way_ had he spent all that time breaking Kryten of the filthy, exploitative bullsmeg they'd programmed into him, only to turn round and callously use him for his own ends, just like a human was expected to do. He'd sooner lose Starbug and face the consequences – he'd sooner anything – than show himself up to be a hypocrite.

“No,” he snarled, his eyes narrow.

“You got slave?” the ringleader persisted.

“Smegging hell, no!” Lister exclaimed. “You think I'd go in for all that master-slave smeg...?”

His voice trailed off. _Master_. That was what he called him. And it sounded laughable, really – like Igor doing the mad scientist's bidding – but the way he looked at him, that light in his eyes that he doubted anyone had ever seen before, he could never bring himself to care.

 _I'm yours_ , he heard him say, through his hooch-fuelled haze, and smeg, to hear those words... to know what they _meant_ , that he needed him completely, trusted him absolutely... It was different. He wasn't a pet, or a servant, or a slave. He was his. Simple as that.

And imagine how he would feel if Lister told him he'd gambled him in a poker game... like he was just a thing, to be gambled! The rush of power Lister felt was always a guilty one. But he knew what would follow. He knew how much he loved it. He knew that every offhanded slight made him ache for him harder... made him feel, well, alive.

He could see it now, the redness creeping over the tips of his ears as he struggled for an affronted reply, just like it always did when he teased him in public. When he reminded him of his place in front of the others. He had always been fun to wind up, and this was no less true now that winding him up in the daytime meant watching him _go_ at night.

He imagined his face, flushed and open with embarrassment and desperate need, as he lay atop him in the bunk, pushing at his buttons, reminding him of how he had squirmed when he'd told him. How he'd come so close to giving the game away. How his mask of indignation had almost slipped as he fought desperately against a growing erection. Oh, it drove him wild. And if there was one thing Lister loved, it was wild.

“What you bet?” the ringleader repeated, bringing him back from his reverie.

Lister took a deep breath. “I've got a hologram,” he said, with just a tinge of guilt.

After all, it wasn't like he was going to lose.

 

OK, what Lister had done had been incredibly stupid, but they had all got out of it safely. Misguided and impulsive, yes, but far from unforgivable. In fact, with hindsight, now that fear was no longer coursing through his veins and shutting out every other possibility of an emotion, it had been... quite an experience. (Especially when they had gone to see the BEGGs with him in tow, with him as their _property_ , and attempted to convince them that he was worthless. Oh, there were _much_ worse things they could have done than just dressing him up in a shabby old parka. He swallowed guiltily.)

So why was Lister sitting there looking so morose?

Kryten was chattering away to Irene, praising her for her assistance and asking her what she planned to do next. There was little call for her skills on an empty research institute three million years into her own future, but she seemed happy enough just to have been brought out of stasis and re-evolved. She'd held out little hope that that would ever happen when she'd gone in.

Rimmer knew all this because, despite his best efforts to be distracted from the conversation by Lister's worryingly depressed appearance, she was directing one heck of a lot of her answers at him, complete with affectionate touches on the arm to get his attention. It was all mightily irritating, and he worried that his and Lister's arrangement must be _incredibly_ transparent, if she was reading him as eligible.

They were all out of danger, they had been through a few things that might make for highly engaging roleplay material once they had recovered themselves a bit, _and_ they had rescued _another representative of the human race_ , for heaven's sake! So why the smeg did Lister look so...

Rimmer paled.

Lister looked _lost_.

Oh, heavens preserve them all from that boy's guilt complex! Did he think it had been any easier for him, Arnie J., to face up to his nature? To admit that he, of all the dignified, disciplined, dynamic leaders of men, secretly wanted to... to be... well, anyway...

Lister _needed_ him. Needed to own him, needed to conquer him, needed to make him moan and beg and to know that there was no other being in the universe who could do that to him. But it ate him up inside. It scared him to know what he was capable of. And when Dave Lister, good guy extraordinaire, felt like he'd done something wrong... he just couldn't do it at all.

Rimmer groaned inwardly. Not tonight. Not after the day they'd had. He couldn't face it, Lister cold and withdrawn, sad and self-flagellating, retreating to the emptiness of the upper bunk because he “didn't deserve him”. Guilty conscience or no smegging guilty conscience, Lister couldn't manage without him. And he was damned if he was going to let him try.

“Mr Rimmer, it must be fascinating being three million years in the future! I'm sure you just meet _tons_ of friendly, intelligent, super-evolved beings! And you must get on _so_ well with them, seeing as how you're so cultured, and clever, and debonair... Please, do tell me all about them!”

Rimmer turned to see Irene gazing at him adoringly over the top (well, bottom) of her glasses, lips pursed in a coy, flirty little smile, ready to hang on his every word if only he would let slip a few. Then a flicker of a smirk suddenly tugged at his lips.

He brayed ostentatiously, and gave her a touch-on-the-arm of his own. “But of course, Professor!” he replied unctuously. “Or should I call you Irene?”

“Oh, absolutely, er...”

“Arnold,” he supplied chummily.

“Arnold!” she echoed with delight, as though it were the most thrilling piece of information she'd ever heard. “What a lovely name!”

“Oh, you're too kind, _Irene_ ,” he smarmed. “And may I say what an absolute pleasure it is to have you on board?”

As she cooed back at him, he stole a glance over at Lister. One thing, at least, was certain: he wasn't looking lost any more.

 

The day, although not half as terrible as Lister had initially feared, had been a strange one. The BEGGs had been... well... taken care of, the ERRA institute had been found, the groinal exploder had been de-exploderified (permanently – they had made damn sure of that), and Irene had finally achieved her long-thwarted ambition of evolving into a being of pure consciousness. But not before Rimmer had made what had looked like a damn concerted effort at getting into her pants.

“Cheeky little sod, aren't you?” Lister grumbled as he locked the bunkroom door behind them.

“I could say the same of you,” Rimmer quipped back smoothly.

Lister stared at him, a flush of heat flaring in his gut. He realised that mere hours earlier, he had been turning confessions and apologies and outpourings of bitter regret over and over in his mind. He had been ready for this conversation to be _the_ conversation: he couldn't do this any more, wouldn't let Rimmer continue to place undeserved trust in him, could not in good faith act as Rimmer's controller and protector when he himself was such a moral failure.

And now, all he wanted to do was teach Rimmer a lesson he would never, ever forget. Not even if it took them another three million years of drifting through space before he got the chance to flirt with someone again.

A smile crept across Lister's features. He still hadn't really figured out whether Rimmer was capable of acting truly selflessly. But since these days, most of the time, they both wanted the same things, it worked out pretty well for him.

“So you think two wrongs make a right, do you?” Lister said slowly, his tone low and threatening.

“I think we get what we deserve,” Rimmer replied, oozing smugness. Only the faintest trace of apprehension in his eyes belied the emptiness of his bravado.

God, Lister loved it when he put up a fight. It just made it all the sweeter when he finally managed to make him crawl. And although Rimmer was never very keen to talk about the finer details of his submission kink, Lister strongly suspected that he loved it too. The prouder he acted, the further he had to fall.

“Oh, I know exactly what _you_ think you deserve,” Lister growled, gradually slipping into gear as he stepped close, dangerously close, to his smirking lover. “You think you can just have your fun, earn yourself a good hard spanking, and then after I've put in all that effort trying to teach you to behave, you'll just go off and do it again, won't you?”

Rimmer was starting to colour already, and there had been a definite twitch at the mention of spanking. That was obviously what he'd been anticipating when he'd pulled his little stunt. And while he did enjoy taking Rimmer over his knee and smacking that sensitive backside of his until it glowed, it paid to keep him on his toes. He snickered. Oh, yes.

“Come on, Rimmer, answer me. You think you know what you deserve, don't you?”

Rimmer dropped his gaze, wrong-footed; finally he managed to look Lister in the eye, and muster a haughty “Yes.”

That was a pretty safe answer, whichever way you sliced it, and not a particularly witty one. Lister couldn't help smirking at how quickly he'd managed to throw Rimmer off. “And that, Rimmer,” he replied coolly, “is why you need me to take you in hand.”

“I need nothing of the sort,” Rimmer faltered, but it was obvious that he was hovering on the edge of surrender.

Lister fixed him with a stare, and let him flounder in a pause that was ominously long, sending the colour rippling across his cheeks. Then, finally:

“Wrist, Rimmer,” he commanded.

“Oh, _no_ ,” Rimmer wailed, his simulated breath quickening with something that was more than just fear.

“You know the rules, Rimmer,” Lister chided. “I'm not asking you twice.”

He had never had to ask Rimmer twice. The unspoken intimation was that Rimmer really did not want to find out what would happen if he did.

Chagrined, his head bowed with shame, Rimmer held out his left wrist; Lister took it, feeling the power surge through him, savouring the moment. The hologrammatic control watch he constantly wore was for his personal use only, which was why it had been such a powerful symbol of the depth of their bond when he had shown Lister how to program it... for just one specific function.

With his fingertip, Lister traced a complex pattern on the inscrutable grey face of the device, then clicked a button on its side. Rimmer whimpered, his cheeks now flaming scarlet, as his hologrammatic uniform disappeared, leaving him stark naked and painfully vulnerable in front of his lover... his _master_.

It never ceased to fascinate Lister, the way stripping Rimmer of his clothes robbed him so neatly of his defences. He didn't see why it was such a big deal, himself; he would happily get undressed before Rimmer had had a chance to (or, sometimes, when he had forbidden him to... but that was another story). Still, he wasn't going to complain, not when it meant he got to see his deliciously helpless reaction. Among other things.

Lister felt his dick starting to harden, beneath the layers of baggy clothes he still wore. Such a fucking gorgeous body. There were so many things he wanted to do with it. And what drove him crazy was the knowledge that Rimmer would let him.

“Now,” he said expansively, his eyes roaming possessively over Rimmer's naked body and making him squirm, “I think we both know what you really deserve, don't we?”

“Yes,” Rimmer squeaked, “...master.”

Oh, there it was. There it was, at last. Daft though the epithet was, Lister couldn't stop a shiver from running through him. He had earned it. He had wrung it out of Rimmer, bit by bit. Played him like an instrument until all he could do was surrender. And now, by God, he was going to live up to it.

“You deserve to be punished, don't you, Rimmer?” Lister pressed, slipping a finger under his chin and forcing his head up to meet his gaze.

“Yes, master,” Rimmer repeated in that same small voice, his eyes filled with fear and shame and lust and longing, and God, the sight nearly made him crack right then and there... nearly drove him to close the gap between them and pull him down into a hungry, frenzied, desperate kiss. But he wouldn't. For both of their sakes, he wouldn't. He would give them what they both needed.

“Tell me why,” Lister said, the hitch in his breath barely noticeable.

“Because I flirted with someone else,” Rimmer whimpered.

“And why,” Lister continued patiently, “shouldn't you have done that?”

Rimmer swallowed. “Because I'm yours,” he whispered.

The words were electrifying. Lister felt himself stiffen even more, and he had to work hard to stop himself from letting out a groan. “So you _do_ know what you did wrong,” he said. “And yet you did it anyway. You offered something that's not yours to give.”

“I'm sorry, master,” Rimmer moaned, and he sounded like he meant it.

“You know very well, Rimmer, that sorry isn't good enough,” Lister replied, turning abruptly away from his shamefaced lover and slowly pacing the room. “If you're going to forget that easily that you belong to me... that you don't have the _right_ to behave like that without my permission... I'm going to have to teach you to remember.”

Lister stooped down by the bunks, knowing without even looking that Rimmer's eyes would be boring into him, desperate to work out what he was about to subject him to. With a jangle that just wasn't _quite_ the kind Rimmer was used to hearing in this situation, he turned around, and triumphantly held aloft the empty metal husk of the groinal exploder.

The look on his lover's face was priceless.

“What the hell are you going to do with that?!” Rimmer spluttered in alarm, before he could help himself.

“Oh, Rimmer,” Lister tutted, “you saw me disable this thing with your own eyes. Saw me cut every wire, saw me gouge out every bit of explosive. But if you really don't trust me... there are _much_ more unpleasant things I could do to you instead.”

Rimmer swallowed. “I trust you,” he squeaked, and Lister could read in his expression that in spite of his better judgment, he did. “Master,” he added hastily.

“Good boy,” Lister grinned, savouring the look of gratification that flickered in Rimmer's eyes at his word of approval. “Now, hold still. And don't struggle. You can save that for later.”

The reaction that ominously enigmatic comment provoked was exactly the one Lister had been hoping for, and he felt another rush of blood to his steadily hardening cock. Usually, trying to read what went through Rimmer's mind was an infuriating struggle – the more so because he really _cared_ what was going on in there. But when they were like this – _only_ when they were like this – every little twist and turn of his emotions was written plain as day on that gorgeously expressive face. He understood them. He controlled them. And he could make them feel fucking fantastic.

He slid the cold metal belt around Rimmer's waist, making him yelp and shiver meekly. It clicked into place, tight against his pale skin, and then he reached between his legs, lifted up the smooth, curved central bar to meet the front-piece, and slid it home.

“ _Christ!_ ” Rimmer gasped, eyes wide at the sudden dangerous pressure against certain very delicate areas. “Was this thing this tight on you?!”

Lister smirked. Oh, that had made him sit up and take notice all right. The initial shock of the cold, hard metal running all the way up his crack had to have been pretty interesting too.

“It's adjustable,” he replied, his eyes glittering.

He gathered up the stiff links of metal which still dangled loosely from the front-piece, and fingered them thoughtfully. “You know,” he said, eyeing his panicked lover mischievously, “I had to spend a lot longer in a collar today than I would ever have wanted to. I really don't think they suit me, do they, Rimmer?”

There went his Adam's apple again. Such a beautiful indicator that he was trapped. “No, master,” he said hesitantly.

“Now you, on the other hand,” Lister goaded, “I have to say, I really think you were _born_ to wear a collar.”

Rimmer whimpered, his pained gaze dropping to the floor, as his cheeks began to flush crimson. Lister almost moaned in satisfaction. He knew what Rimmer liked – of _course_ he knew – but Rimmer had been so mortified when he'd told him. Having to lay himself open like that, admit to shameful secrets he'd never told anyone before... it was way outside his comfort zone of pompous defensiveness. And, as such, it had turned them both on enormously (provoking another wave of helpless mortification in Rimmer, which Lister had found highly amusing). He liked to remind him as often as he could, in innocent-seeming little allusions whose cruel subtext was unmistakable, that he knew him inside-out, and would exploit that knowledge mercilessly.

He pulled the interlocking strips of metal taut against Rimmer's body, and looped the collar section around his neck with ceremonial delicateness – ensuring that it, like the central bar, was fastened just tight enough to make him think very carefully before making any sudden movements. While Lister had been able to wear the device reasonably comfortably, Rimmer, being taller, had to stoop slightly to prevent the collar from pulling painfully on the lower section – which had the effect of making him look about as humiliated as he was undoubtedly feeling.

“Oh, look at you now,” Lister taunted him gleefully. “Naked, and collared, and stuck in a chastity belt. Is that helping you to remember that you belong to me?”

At his loaded words, Rimmer hissed sharply and shut his eyes, in a manner that implied that the makeshift 'chastity belt' was beginning to come into play. “Yes, master,” he whispered, his voice small and pathetic.

“Good,” Lister replied. “Then it's time for the next part of your lesson.”

He took Rimmer's hand, and led him across the room towards the bunks, enjoying his pained squeaks as the device pinched and pressed against his body. He turned so they were face-to-face, then pushed him roughly against the wall; Rimmer had been led to this particular spot many times before, and he whimpered with apprehension as Lister bent down to rummage in their modest little secret cache.

As Lister pulled out the length of rope, he looked up to see that Rimmer was already – slowly, tentatively, possibly not even entirely consciously – bringing his hands together in front of him. His breath caught at the sight, and another rush of arousal flooded his dick.

“Oh, Rimmer,” he breathed. “I _have_ trained you well, haven't I?”

Embarrassed, Rimmer started to nod, then winced as his motions made the device chafe against his body. “Yes, master,” he said weakly instead.

“What a good boy,” Lister murmured, knowing full well the effect his words would have on Rimmer's constricted nether regions, as he pulled his wrists together and started to wrap the rope around them. “And you'll be even better once you've learnt this little lesson, won't you?”

Another “yes, master” – rather more strained this time, Lister noted with a smirk, as he knotted the rope tightly, then reached up to loop the free end over one of the several sturdy metal pipes which conveniently snaked their way through the bunkroom. He looked Rimmer in the eyes, assuming an expression which was dark with wicked menace, and paused, waiting until Rimmer shamefacedly met his gaze before he continued.

“But I hope you won't be perfect,” he said. “Cos then I wouldn't get to have all this fun punishing you.”

He tugged the rope down, all the way down, and Rimmer's mortified whimper quickly gave way to a howl of pain as his bound hands were pulled above his head. Stretched out against the wall, his arms at their full extension, he was unable to stop the central column of the groinal exploder from pulling taut. The collar bit into his neck with choking force, and as for what the lower section was doing to him, it didn't bear thinking about.

Lister watched with affected disinterest as Rimmer writhed and wailed, his scarlet face screwed up in agony, struggling wildly to get away from the hard-edged metal forcing itself up into his crotch. In truth, though a small part of him was dispassionately surveying the scene, calculating lengths and distances with a practised eye, he was actually fiercely, ragingly interested in the sight before him. He burned with desire, seeing his lover so powerless, so desperate, so utterly at his mercy; he ached guiltily at the thought of the exquisite pain he was in, and the way his masochistic reflexes would be compounding his plight, his half-hard cock pushing itself agonisingly against the unyielding front-piece.

Rimmer twisted frantically, his eyes brimming with tears, his bare feet scrabbling for purchase against the bunkroom wall and finding none; slowly, incrementally, Lister lowered the rope, and finally Rimmer worked out that if he stayed on tiptoe, he could just about slouch his torso enough to relieve the torturous pressure.

 _If_.

Lister secured the end of the rope carefully to another little anchor-point of piping, a glint in his eye. Now for the fun part.

“Poor, poor Rimmer,” he sighed, stepping back and shaking his head pityingly at his gasping, tearful, woebegone lover. “Oh, I bet that really hurt. Did that hurt?”

“Yes, master,” Rimmer whimpered brokenly.

“So now you know exactly how unpleasant it'll be if I pull on that rope again,” Lister continued. “Don't you?”

“Yes, master,” Rimmer croaked, his gaze darting about in sudden terror at the thought.

“I'm not going to,” Lister said, folding his arms.

At that statement, Rimmer looked so hopelessly bewildered that Lister had to suppress a chuckle. “But... but don't you want to punish me... master?” he faltered timidly.

Lister thought briefly about how his face would fall if he said no, but it was almost too heartbreaking a vision to be comical. “This is your punishment, Rimmer: you're going to stand there, trussed up and helpless, until I decide to let you down. And I'm not going to do a single thing but watch.”

Slowly-dawning comprehension registered on Rimmer's face, followed swiftly by panic as he glanced down at himself, and tugged fruitlessly at the rope, and shifted cautiously on his tiptoes. Lister waited, devouring his display of emotions hungrily, looking forward to what he knew would come next.

“...Predicament bondage?” Rimmer finally whispered, a vivid blush creeping across his cheeks.

Lister grinned broadly. There were two, equally exciting, stages to making Rimmer come apart: the one where he started calling him 'master', and the one where he finally _forgot_ to call him 'master'. “Got it in one, Rimsy,” he replied cheerfully, briefly breaking character in his turn.

Rimmer's eyes went wide, the disbelieving excitement in them quickly being joined by self-conscious apprehension as he realised he was about to be putting on a display. Then he shut them again and let out a choked moan, both the excitement and the apprehension having apparently reached a point somewhat further down his anatomy.

“Oh, dear, Rimmer,” Lister smirked. “Looks like you've started punishing yourself already. Turning you on, is it, being stuck like this? Having to stand there in front of me, so exposed and defenceless?”

Rimmer moaned again, and his blush deepened. Oh, this little feedback loop he'd put him into was glorious. “Cos I can tell you, it's certainly turning _me_ on,” Lister continued wickedly. “I just love watching you squirm, Rimmer. And it's so much easier this way. I don't even have to lift a finger. I can just let you do all the work for me. And since you're the one who's behaved badly enough to earn yourself a punishment, that seems pretty fair, doesn't it?”

Lister knew that it really wasn't fair, but then, it wasn't exactly true, either. The effort he was putting in to keeping his distance was much greater than the exertion involved in Rimmer's usual punishments. He craved physical contact, yearned to run his fingers across his skin, to feel him shiver as he waited for a slap, or a bite, or a scratch... but he knew it had to be this way. He needed to punish him, but he didn't want to be the one to hurt him. Not today.

Lister watched with a sly smile as Rimmer shuffled on his toes, his expression pained. “I think you're struggling,” he singsonged. “You're struggling, aren't you, Rimmer?”

“Yes, master,” Rimmer managed piteously amidst his wriggling. Lister observed that the muscles in his legs were stretched taut; he had to be feeling the strain by now. He trembled as he tried shifting his weight and hanging from his bound wrists instead; a hiss of pain indicated that this was no good. With his arms already stretched full-length, and his back tight against the wall, Lister reckoned he would have needed some fairly impressive abdominal strength to keep his torso bent without resting on his tiptoes. He couldn't help a small glow of pride from crossing his face; he'd set this up pretty damn well for a first try.

Rimmer wouldn't have noticed it anyway, not in his desperate state. “Oh, dear,” Lister crowed. “It doesn't look like you're going to hold out much longer. Sooner or later, Rimmer, you're going to fail, I know you are.”

Rimmer let out a strangled moan, and a cruel thrill ran through Lister. Of course Rimmer was going to fail; he'd set him up to fail. The guy had just about as complicated a relationship with failure as he had with pretty much every other emotion ( _and person_ , Lister found himself adding) in his life. But when he couldn't help but fail, when Lister put him in these impossible positions and then acted like he could have got out of them if he'd only tried, it... did something to him. Catharsis, maybe. Lister didn't pretend to understand it. But he knew it worked.

“I hope you understand now, Rimmer,” he intoned, watching the now-uncontrollable trembling in Rimmer's calves with a keen eye. “I hope you understand that when you disobey me, all you're doing is hurting yourself.”

Right on cue, _perfectly_ on cue (had he done it on purpose, Lister wondered?), Rimmer's legs gave way. He screamed in agony as the metal pulled taut once again, biting into his crotch with what must have been horrendous force. All he could do was hang there, the rope cutting into his wrists, his full weight pulling on his arms, the collar tight and choking around his neck. Every ounce of his strength had been expended, and he was helpless, unable to do anything but submit to the hideous, blinding pain.

Lister savoured the feeling of power that coursed through him – but he couldn't help fishing for reassurance. “You brought this on yourself, didn't you, Rimmer?” he said, much more coolly than he felt.

“Yes,” Rimmer spluttered out, in between his tortured gasps and shrieks, and Lister was flooded with relief and desire and overwhelming emotion. Rimmer had let him do this, accepted it all without protest, because he _wanted_ it. He needed it, to be driven into this state where nothing mattered any more except his pain, and his complete and total surrender. He was his. And oh, how Lister needed _that_.

“You're not going to disobey me again in a hurry, are you, Rimmer?” he pressed. “Not now that you know what happens when you're stupid enough to think you can.”

“No,” Rimmer choked, writhing hopelessly against the agony that was filling every fibre of his body. His face was already as red as it could possibly get, but Lister knew that his chiding would have provoked another flush of raw humiliation.

“You need me, don't you?” he continued, pushing the situation to its limits. “You need me to get you out of the predicaments you land yourself in.”

“I do,” Rimmer panted in shame, finally finding his voice as the pain became too much to withstand. “I need you, master – oh god, please – let me down, I'm begging you – I've learnt my lesson, I promise – I'm hopeless without you, I'm _nothing_ without you – I can't bear this any longer, have mercy on me, master, _please!_ ”

Lister surveyed his struggling lover contemplatively, pretending to consider his desperate outburst for as long as he dared. Then, slowly, he nodded. “All right, Rimmer,” he said. “I think you've been punished enough. And I do love hearing you beg for mercy.” Rimmer whimpered, mortified, and Lister grinned. “So I'll help you out of the mess you're in. _This_ time.”

He stepped over to where Rimmer hung helplessly, reached for the catches at his neck and waist, and sprang them open, letting the groinal exploder clatter to the floor. Rimmer's groan of grateful, tearful relief sent a tremor straight through him.

“Oh, you poor thing,” Lister breathed as he surveyed the angry bruises round Rimmer's neck, the little indentations the device had left down his torso, and the tender, reddened state of his half-hard penis. Rimmer was gulping down sobs, tears of pain and humiliation and pathetic gratitude finally spilling over onto his scarlet cheeks; his arms were still almost being yanked out of their sockets, but by this stage, Lister thought, he must hardly have cared.

“What a lot of punishment you took,” Lister said softly, stroking Rimmer's damp cheek, and gazing deep into his pain-filled eyes. “You hurt yourself so badly. And all to please me. You're a good boy, aren't you?”

“Yes, master,” Rimmer blurted out, overcome, and Lister's heart swelled.

“I know you're a good boy really,” Lister whispered, and kissed him on the lips. Whether Rimmer knew was another matter, Lister reflected, but he still tried his best to convince him.

He untied the length of rope from its mooring, and let Rimmer loose. Rimmer, his every muscle having given out on him long ago, stumbled and toppled forwards as the rope suddenly slackened. Effortlessly, Lister caught him in his arms, Rimmer's bound hands dropping to land round his neck.

Finally, they were touching; he held Rimmer tight, pressed his weakened, abused, naked body close against him as he whimpered against his shoulder, the sound setting off fireworks in his chest. “Shh-h-h,” Lister soothed, stroking his sweat-damp hair, almost ready to cry himself with the relief of their physical reunion.

“Thank you,” Rimmer said weakly.

“Oh, Christ, Rimmer, smegging hell, don't say that,” Lister exclaimed in a rush, hysteria tinging his voice with giggles as the overwhelmed tears started to flow. “Don't smegging well say that,” he laughed, pressing his face to Rimmer's bruised neck, and letting the wetness drip onto his skin.

“Lister,” Rimmer said firmly, though there was a chuckle in his voice too. “I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it.”

Lister looked up, and grinned through his haze of tears. “Then thank you, too,” he said, and he captured Rimmer's lips in a long, deep kiss, one that was full of the hunger and frustration and, at last, gratification that had been bubbling within him.

They broke off, panting, and stared dazedly into each other's eyes. “Now then,” Rimmer said, utterly failing in his breathlessness to muster his usual levels of brisk haughtiness, which made Lister smirk. “My wrists are still tied together, my genitals probably won't be fit for active service for at least a day, and I can barely smegging walk. So what, exactly, do you intend to do with me now?”

Mischief danced in Lister's eyes, mischief which he was sure was echoed in those once-more-unreadable murky green depths. “I think, Rimmer,” he said with as straight a face as he could manage, “I'd better make sure you can't walk at all.”

He pushed Rimmer towards the lower bunk, laughing, and he staggered, his bound arms still round Lister's neck and pulling him with him. They both fell, Lister just about managing not to land on any of Rimmer's tender areas, and Rimmer started laughing too. Feigning annoyance, Lister wrestled ineffectually with the loose end of rope which had landed across them; then he gave up, and once again, they kissed, still entangled.


End file.
